News / 20 Jul 2017

Mixed sex toilets soon to be the norm?

Bullying is a long-standing problem in society, and none more worrisome than in schools. Millions of school children are affected by bullying and the question asked by parents is, “what are you doing to prevent it?”

School toilets have been a key location for bullying for many years. They are remote and discreet areas where bullying and anti-social behaviour can thrive. The school washroom is also an area that is often hard for teachers to monitor effectively – compounding the problem even more. There are some simple ways to reduce bullying incidents in school washrooms, some of which include new innovative washroom designs.

Wallgate commercial manager, Phil Thorne comments: “Toilets designated only for males or females have been the norm in educational facilities since the Victorian times. Giving up this traditional washroom model might seem preposterous to most, they are what they are aren’t they? But individual toilet rooms can significantly increase costs and often this type of layout requires additional space. Moreover, schools typically have limited budgets, established facilities, and deep-rooted social practices they don’t want to change.

Times are changing

“Creating open plan washrooms in schools is a simple process and one we are seeing more and more of. I believe it could well become the norm in a matter of years. Open plan is achieved by installing two banks of cubicles in the same large open space, one set of cubicles is for boys, and one for girls. There are then wash basins in an easily accessible part of the room to be shared by all users. In this scenario exposure to bullying or anti-social behaviour is reduced by several factors. The washroom is much busier as both sexes are using it and students may be less likely to hang out in the toilet block once they have used the facilities encouraging shorter visits. Furthermore, washrooms become easy to supervise because of their open plan design allowing teachers to pass by without entering.

Kingdown Secondary School in Wiltshire has worked closely with Wallgate for almost seven years, installing robust innovative washroom solutions on both new build and refurbishment projects. Catering for 1,600 children, inevitably the washrooms have high footfall, and therefore efficiency and durability of products is a high priority.

The school wanted to create an open plan washroom solution for both boys and girls to eliminate the toilet blocks being an area of ‘congregation’ for children. With the breadth of product range, experience of solving school washroom problems, and being very flexible to work with, Wallgate was well positioned to help.

Site manager, Nick Trimby told us: “Wallgate always help deliver the most suitable water saving solution and easy to use technology best suited to the academic environment. We now have school washrooms that children want to use and will look after for years to come.

“They provide great customer service. The Thrii 3-in-1 hand wash dryer, for instance, is a brilliant product and it has saved the school a lot of money in overall running costs including soap and is extremely hygienic. Their robust products are the perfect answer for our sector.”

Unisex washrooms have caused quite a stir in some schools, yet they continue to be installed across the UK for a number of reasons. Not only helping in the battle against bullies, but a further advantage is shared washrooms are considered more hygienic therefore less hazardous and less cleaning is required.

The recommendations given by government guidelines for England for new secondary schools include putting toilet blocks close to staffrooms or offices for subtle supervision. If the ideas continue to be taken up, urinals could be a thing of the past and children congregating in the toilets stops.

The recommendations cover schools being rebuilt or refurbished under the government's £45bn Building Schools for the Future programme.

Tim Byles, chief executive of the Partnerships for Schools, the agency responsible for the programme, said behaviour could be improved by good design and it is suggested that making toilets unisex would discourage pupils from congregating in the area.

Phil Thorne continues: “Unisex washrooms can being designed so they include separate male and female cubicle rooms that are both accessed from a communal unisex hand wash area – a solution we support at Wallgate as it is a comfortable middle ground that still increases footfall.”

Children congregate more in quiet, closed off areas – therefore it’s worth rethinking layout carefully to combat these problems with open plan environments that can be easily monitored.

The new Wallgate approved CPD module ‘Innovative Washroom Solutions’ discusses the key elements and criteria that architects and specifiers need to consider when designing all aspects of a school washroom.

The two office washroom facilities at Wiltshire-based felt manufacturer and supplier, Naish Felts required a complete refurbishment and refit to their ‘sixties’ building due to wear and tear over the last 40 years.

Bullying is a long-standing problem in society, and none more worrisome than in schools. Millions of school children are affected by bullying and the question asked by parents is, “what are you doing to prevent it?”

Real-time demonstrations of its networked water management controllers and discussions on the development of its new anti-ligature proportional shower controls were hot topics on the Wallgate stand at the Design in Mental Health Exhibition.

Specifying products for washrooms, whatever sector it might be for, may seem like a fairly straightforward task, but there are a number of considerations that need to be taken into account if success is to be achieved.

The Lake District’s natural beauty and abundant wildlife inspired Beatrix Potter to write her much-loved stories and today those characters are brought to life at a popular tourist attraction in the heart of the Lakeland countryside.

Wallgate will be demonstrating its healthcare sanitaryware range and unveiling new washroom products at the Design in Mental Health Show, Birmingham. New for 2017 are the latest shower controller and solid surface material developments.

Recently, the Secretary for the Department of Education said that if the bottom 75 per cent of schools became as efficient as the most cost effective 25 per cent then the education budget over the next few years wouldn’t be a problem.

With most school budgets seemingly always at breaking point, and as many as 72% of school leaders saying their budgets will be ‘unsustainable’ by 2019, the education sector needs to be doing everything it can to make the money go further. Added to that the expectations from government and parents for schools to maintain or raise their standards and provide a better, cleaner and more hygienic environment for the children to learn in, is understandably difficult for most. Phil Thorne, commercial manager at Wallgate provides some timely advice.

Wallgate’s commitment to staff training and health and safety was underlined last month when 13 members of the team took the City and Guild accredited programme on water hygiene in healthcare building water systems (ACoP, HSG274, HTM 04-01).

Attending for the second year in a row, Wallgate were again demonstrating their healthcare sanitary ware range and unveiling new products at the Design in Mental Health Exhibition, Birmingham, this time, introducing a specialist dementia-friendly range.

St Ilans School, Caerphilly has recently chosen Wallgate products for a £3.5m new build project. The construction of a new three-storey teaching block and entrance atrium was developed to meet the needs of staff and pupils aged 3-16 years.

Wallgate is proud to announce that the Thrii now meets the Australian SAA Electrical safety approval. This is another big step for Wallgate Australasia with the Thrii previously gaining Watermark™ approval.

Wallgate is well known in the UK for public washrooms so we are delighted to be chosen to supply our automatic hand wash units for a major project to create pubic washroom facilities throughout Moscow, RUSSIA.

Ceramic WC pans and basins used extensively throughout the prison estate suffer high rates of breakages with replacements sometimes difficult to obtain. With over 10 years experience supplying into UK prisons, Wallgate was contacted by NOMS to provide a solution to the problem.

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